Cross-party support urged for anti-poverty manifesto

Group chief executive Lyn Amos said child poverty was a “political choice” and urged all parties to make policy changes.

Actions encouraged by the manifesto include raising the minimum wage, building social housing, free GP visits up to the age of 18 and during pregnancy, increasing the child disability allowances and fees-free early childhood education centres.

StatsNZ figures show the number of children in material hardship rose by 47,500 between 2022 and 2025.

The manifesto’s lead author, Emeritus Professor Innes Asher, said most political parties agreed in 2018 to halve the number of children in poverty by 2028, but “instead it’s gone up”.

“They’ve been pulled down into material hardship at a very time that we had a pact in 2018, the Child Poverty Reduction Act, when we all agreed that it should be halved by 2028 to 6 per cent, and it’s gone up now to 14 per cent.”

That meant one in seven children were living in poverty, she said, but the impact was more pronounced for some groups, with one in four tamariki Māori, one in three Pacific children and one in four disabled children living in material hardship.  

The Child Poverty Action Group said poverty persisted because of failures in the labour market, housing, health and disability, education, welfare and tax settings. It said these were down to political choices and all parties needed to be held accountable.

There was a reduction in child poverty rates between 2019 and 2022 – after the Child Poverty Reduction Act became law.

The policy change that would bring the fastest and greatest change would be to replace Working for Families with one simple child tax credit that reached all children in low- and middle-income families, and didn’t hinge on their parents’ benefit status, Professor Asher said.

Minister for Child Poverty Reduction Louise Upston said, “through Budget 2026 and other initiatives, our government is actively working to reduce child poverty and material hardship by changing the circumstances which trap people in poverty, and to address the long-term drivers of child poverty”.

FULL STORY

New Zealand has gone in ‘wrong direction’ on addressing child poverty – action group (Radio New Zealand)